And then there were none by Agatha Christie was one of the first adult books I read. In fact, the memory of finding at my Grandmother’s church book sale is burned into my mind. I was in fourth grade and was getting tired of reading Nancy Drew books. The other women at her church spent hours sorting books into categories so that I could spend minutes pouring over the mystery section, reading the text on the back for any title that caught my eye. In the end, I walked away with three books, And then there were none, Roses are red and Violets are blue.

To this day, And then there were none remains one of my favorite novels, one I reach for again and again. I’m also in love with the recent mini-series adaptation even though it significantly changes the ending. Having read and enjoyed other Agatha Christie books, it wasn’t a huge leap for me to be curious about a fictional book discussing what happened when Agatha Christie went missing.

Let’s start with the fact that Agatha Christie did in fact go missing in 1926 for 12 days. Police searched for her for 3 days after finding her car abandoned with two wheels hanging over the edge of a chalk pit and eventually expanded the search after finding themselves unsatisfied with the results (The New York Times did an excellent summary of the time period). True, she wasn’t as well known as she is now, but for 12 days there wasn’t a reliable witness and to this day no one knows what really happened during the 12 day period. It’s a mystery novel in and of itself.

Using Christie’s Husband’s Mistress as a narrator, The Christie Affair aims to tell a fictional story about what happened during those 12 days and I think it does an amazing job. True, there are elements of the story that are almost too convenient (like who the mother of the child is), but the convenience doesn’t go so far as to take you out of the story.

I enjoyed reading about love, both a mother’s and a lover’s. I enjoyed the portrayal of Agatha as someone who was willing to commit to and keep a secret. This was a fun read and a fantastic way to kick off 2023. This wasn’t a book with levels of hidden depth, but it was one that made you think about how someone’s history affects their present.

Next month, we’ll read Book of night by Holly Black. I’m particularly excited about this one because it’s Black’s first adult novel (I read a lot of her books growing up) and because it takes place in an area that I grew up in and around.

In Charlie Hall’s world, shadows can be altered, for entertainment and cosmetic preferences—but also to increase power and influence. You can alter someone’s feelings—and memories—but manipulating shadows has a cost, with the potential to take hours or days from your life. Your shadow holds all the parts of you that you want to keep hidden—a second self, standing just to your left, walking behind you into lit rooms. And sometimes, it has a life of its own.

Charlie is a low-level con artist, working as a bartender while trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading. She gets by doing odd jobs for her patrons and the naive new money in her town at the edge of the Berkshires. But when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie’s present life is thrown into chaos, and her future seems at best, unclear—and at worst, non-existent. Determined to survive, Charlie throws herself into a maelstrom of secrets and murder, setting her against a cast of doppelgängers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves, and her own sister—all desperate to control the magic of the shadows.